In ‘Lizzie,’ actress Chloë Sevigny delivers a sensitive take on the sensational true-life tale of Lizzie Borden

Kristen Stewart, left, and Chloë Sevigny in “Lizzie,” the story of Lizzie Borden. (Photo courtesy of Saban Films and Roadside Attractions)

Chloë Sevigny wanted her Lizzie Borden to be an empathetic version of the historical figure she plays in the new film “Lizzie,” which is all well and good, but then Lizzie Borden did take an ax and give her mother 40 whacks, or so we’ve all been told, so … empathy?

“I want people to like her and root for her,” Sevigny says during an interview at the Four Seasons Los Angeles at Beverly Hills about the film in which she co-stars with Kristen Stewart. “And then when she does it you’re just like, ‘Whaaat?’

“You really like this woman and she does this horrendous thing,” she says. “I think even though you know what’s going to happen, the way that we show it and tell it, it’s still really satisfying, at least I hope so.”

Sevigny is clearly a fan of Borden, who, we should note for the record, was acquitted of the 1892 ax-whackings of her mother and father, no matter what that infamous rhyme might have led you to believe. It comes through in the way she talks about Borden, and also in the stubborn passion she displayed in fighting for nearly a decade to bring “Lizzie” to the screen.

For Halloween one year a friend dressed up as Borden, which put the story of Lizzie and her ax back in mind, Sevigny says. A year later on a trip to Massachusetts with her then-boyfriend they decided to add the murder house in Falls River, Massachusetts to their itinerary of creepy New England tourist spots.

“I’ve always been into the Salem witch trials and all of that kind of oppressive New England culture, so I was like, ‘Let’s go to Salem, pay our respects, and go to see the House of the Seven Gables, and why don’t we go by Lizzie Borden’s?’” Sevigny says. “Found out that it was now a bed and breakfast, and I was like, ‘We gotta go!’”

Before bed at the Borden house they took a tour that builds up the spooky nature of where you are staying, she says, which drew her closer and closer into the story of this woman.

“In their telling of this year I was just falling for this character, this person, this woman,” Sevigny says. “I was feeling so much empathy for her and learning more about her and her circumstances, all the different rumors, and just falling, falling, falling for her.”

Their night in the bed and breakfast was restless and a little bit spooky, she says. The boyfriend felt like someone was touching him. She says she heard a weird howling. When she got home to New York City she started reading more about Borden.

“I was just like, ‘I think I want to play this person,’” says Sevigny, whose résumé includes an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress for “Boys Don’t Cry,” a long list of acclaimed indie film parts, and co-starring roles in such TV series as HBO’s “Big Love” and Netflix’s “Bloodline.” “I wasn’t necessarily getting opportunities in features, the kinds that I wanted. I was like, ‘Maybe I should just try and develop it.’”

She took screenwriter Bryce Kass, a friend and former roommate, back to the Borden B&B, and together they talked about what kind of story to tell, eventually settling on the idea of Lizzie as a woman trapped by the circumstances of her time – as an unmarried woman, her father controlled nearly every aspect of her life – who sought freedom in a manner most extreme.

“Part of what’s so captivating is the legend, and how people have built on the legend and added to it,” Sevigny says. “How she now kind of represents this feminist American outlaw who was rallying against the status quo and the patriarchy.

“She’s kind of an icon for outcasts and misfits, and those are my people,” she says.

The screenplay also incorporates the long-held historical rumor that Borden had been in a romantic relationship with the family’s housemaid, Bridget Sullivan, the character played by Stewart, and might have been motivated to kill her parents in order to inherit their money and start anew elsewhere with Bridget.

“She’s in her fantasy world, and I think that made the love story more complex and interesting to me,” Sevigny says.

The project was initially bought by HBO which saw it as a miniseries, but once there it stalled in limbo for years. Eventually Sevigny managed to get a team together to buy it back, and then worked to find a new way to get the film made.

Kristen Stewart was the first person that Sevigny, a producer of the film, and Kass considered for Bridget and she quickly signed onto the film directed by Craig William Macneill.

“She’s very real,” Sevigny says of Stewart. “I’m constantly in awe of the way her brain works, so bright and so inventive, and just so many ideas. I was like, ‘No wonder you’re a (bleepin’) movie star!’ I have always been shy and afraid to voice my opinion. Maybe I could learn a thing or two from this girl and be more vocal.”

Sevigny may be shy on set but she’s bold in her willingness to take chances, which is clear in the fearlessness with which both she and Stewart play their parts in the violent scenes we all know will come before the credits roll. Without giving everything away suffice to say there’s a naked vulnerability to these scenes, one that Sevigny says served the message of the movie.

“I feel like it’s a female empowerment movie in a way, and to see her doing this, to see her as a woman, I thought it served the story,” she says. “And I think it’s kind of punk for lack of a better word. It makes sense that she strips herself of these social constraints and just goes animalistic.”